A lawsuit filed by a federal employees’ union over the current U.S. government shutdown cannot move forward because the Justice Department lawyers who defend the government have been ordered not to come to work, a judge said on Tuesday.

Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer said on Wednesday he will oppose President Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee, William Barr, saying he is not convinced that Barr will protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe or provide Congress with a full report on Mueller’s findings.

Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani distanced the U.S. president from any collusion that might have occurred between Russia and other people in his 2016 campaign, saying he had no idea whether any aides colluded with Moscow during that time.

A federal judge has breathed new life into questions surrounding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and the 2012 attack that killed U.S. officials in Benghazi, Libya.

The U.S. government shutdown over President Donald Trump’s call for Congress to fund a wall he promised to build on the U.S.- Mexican border is threatening another campaign pledge to make rules easier to navigate for banks and corporations.

Under a series of bills filed this week by Oklahoma Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat, the governor of Oklahoma would have more appointment power of five top agency directors including the Department of Transportation.

An investigation is underway into the reported breach of millions of files of state data. The State Department of Securities confirmed what it called an “inadvertent” release of data but it’s unclear if the data might have involved matters related to the energy industry in Oklahoma.

Legislation seeking to keep sanctions in place on companies tied to the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, including the giant aluminum firm Rusal , stalled in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, a victory for the Trump administration.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio introduced a bill on Wednesday aimed at giving Americans more control over information that online companies like Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google collect on their location, financial data, job history or biometric data like fingerprints.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will reopen about 980 Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices for three days starting on Thursday to help process farm loans and tax documents during the partial federal government shutdown.

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, part of a new crop of Democrats swept into office this year on a stronger liberal platform, said she is poised to serve on a key congressional panel overseeing Wall Street, a potential setback for the financial services industry.

A meeting between Russia and the United States failed to resolve U.S. accusations that Moscow is violating a Cold War missile treaty, setting the stage for Washington to withdraw from the pact, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

Orange County Republicans need to distance themselves from President Donald Trump to to regain the offices they lost in November and Democrats can’t overplay their hand in order to keep the legislative seats they gained heading into 2020, according to policy and elections specialists.

Oklahoma’s congressional delegation in the U.S. House showed its political division this week when the House failed to pass a measure pressuring Republicans to reopen closed agencies including the EPA and the Interior Department.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to use emergency powers to bypass Congress and get billions of dollars to pay for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, as a partial U.S. government shutdown over the issue stretched into its 20th day.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday canceled a planned visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month amid a shutdown of the federal government, signaling he was prepared for the political showdown to stretch into late January.

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule to allow sales of higher-ethanol blends of gasoline year-round is being delayed by a partial government shutdown, acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said on Wednesday.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to pass a resolution disapproving statements made by Representative Steve King that were roundly criticized as racist, and King himself voted in favor of it.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked President Donald Trump on Wednesday to reschedule his annual State of the Union speech before Congress because of partial federal government shutdown, citing security issues.

Democratic U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has been taking steps to prepare for a run for the White House in 2020, is scheduled to appear on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday night and is expected to discuss her political plans.

During his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, Attorney General Nominee William Barr promised to look into whether a counter intelligence probe was appropriately opened against President Donald Trump by someone at the Justice Department.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been briefed on the situation in Syria, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Wednesday after a blast struck near a U.S.-led coalition patrol that a war monitor said killed 16 people.

Environmentalists aren’t the only ones who show they can lobby someone in Colorado. It’s where the state’s new governor Jared Polis, a Democrat has been lobbied not to enact a moratorium on all new oil and gas drilling in the state.